40 replies to this topic

[SirMiles83]

When reading a couple of posts in some other threads, I've noticed that some people may have ran into the same problem I have. Some years ago in my senior high school english literature class, I asked the teacher which authors we were going to study. The usual suspects like Shakespeare, and others were going to be studied. I asked her if we could read Fleming, and she said that we weren't but I had the oppurtunity in one project to choose any British writer and one of their works to study. She said this is where I could read Fleming. I decided to still push for Fleming in the class and joked around with her for awhile, and I made the mistake of saying that Fleming's Bond character and work had influenced more people around the world than Shakespeare (I still stick to that statement). She was a nice teacher and easy-going so I didn't get too bad of a look when I said that. I read Goldfinger for the project, and she even liked my review so much that she said she would read the book one day. It seems that Ian Fleming doesn't get the amount of appreciation he deserves for creating a character whose books sold millions of copies and later films of the character made billions. It surely can't be his writing style, for it has a beautiful illlustrative style and the Fleming sweep keeps you reading for hours on end. Have you all ran into this before with Literature teachers? How many of you think it should be read in high schools in english lit. classes?

[Zographos]

I never had any problems, so I suppose it all depends on the "stuffiness" of the teacher. Some of them can be really rigid, I imagine.

Although, I must point out...as much as I adore Fleming, I do think it's important that students read such classics as Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, et al.

[JackChase007]

I have thought for the last year or so that Casino Royale is a novel that deserves to be studied. It's such a fascinating novel that explores the morals of a character who normally doesn't have any...

[White Tuxedo]

My college English professor had never heard of Ian Fleming. Honest to God.

[univex]

The Fleming books are a great way to study human psychology, they

[Cesari]

I'm french so I always read Fleming in french. I read parts in english but it is soon and my knowledge of english language is not good enough. But I read Fleming in french for thirty years. When I was at school I studied some english and american writers in english lessons I was always wondering why we never study Fleming books as I found them great litterature. But my english teachers never wanted to.
So I keep on studying shakespeare and Steinbeck at school and Fleming at home.

[Jriv71]

Originally posted by Zographos


...I do think it's important that students read such classics as Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, et al.

I hate to be one of those "when am I ever going to use this" jerks but, to this day, I DO use bits of algebra, trig in professional life (no calculus, however), home life and so on, it IS nice to have some foreign language, knowledge of history and science, but I've never had any use for the "Classics." I find Shakespeare entertaining, but that's for me, that's not for everybody. The only time it's useful to say something like, "Well, you remind me of Heathcliffe when he said..." is when you want to impress somebody. Otherwise, I don't think it has much value at all. It's not bad, but I don't think it's "important" as you said.

Case in point: Back in college, I WAS forced to read the "classics", and I couldn't stand them. So much so that I'd wait until the night before the final, buy the (Heath)cliff notes (bad joke) and, you know the rest. Now...it's not that I don't like to read, or didn't back then, but I hated to be force-fed something that I KNEW would NEVER benefit me. During the Bond hiatus, in around 1990, I bought all the Flemings and Gardners, and read them all, because, along with sports, that's what I wanted to read about. This was while I was in college, and was supposed to be reading the "classics"!!!

Point is, maybe it would be helpful to let students read whatever they want (within reason), if it encourages reading.

Or maybe I'm just completely wrong.

[Johnboy007]

I agree, our generation hates reading. It comes from being forced to read things that we do not want to read. If weren't for Bond, I would have never developed an appreciation for reading.

I think poetry is a crock of .... . I think that poems really do not have any hidden meaning. I think all forms of literature are insanely over analyzed. Unless the author was hyped up on LSD, the funny words ands speech patterns are a result of their high, not attempts at meaning.

I think that English teachers are perhaps the least necessary teachers out there. After 8th grade they become useless, we have the necessary grammar and vocabulary. The rest is just icing on the proverbial cake, it's nice to go further, but is just not needed. Upper level English classes that focus on old poetry, literature, should simply be optional, and not forced upon us.

[Loomis]

Fleming not appreciated enough? Hmmm.... well, he's at the very least a lot more appreciated than the other Bond novelists. Actually, in a way it's a good thing that most of the continuation novels are out of print - since it forces those developing an interest in the literary Bond to read the Flemings first before seeking out the Gardners and Bensons.

And Fleming's much more important than Gardner and Benson. Right?

Right?

[Johnboy007]

Fleming is simply just leagues better Loomis. No continuation novelist(Amis might, i haven't read Colonel Sun) holds a candle to Fleming in the vocabulary department. Fleming's knack for description and detail is the best I have ever read in any story. The continuationers make attempts at it, but never quite reached the Fleming level.

Fleming also should receive more credit because he created the character. He had no one writing them before him, to look for inspiration. He had to create everything(SPECTRE and Blofeld are debateable for some people) on his own, and look at what he created!

[Loomis]

Fleming is simply just leagues better Loomis.  No continuation novelist(Amis might, i haven't read Colonel Sun) holds a candle to Fleming in the vocabulary department.  Fleming's knack for description and detail is the best I have ever read in any story.  The continuationers make attempts at it, but never quite reached the Fleming level.

I couldn't agree more.

That's the problem I have with the continuation novels. A simple, straightforward problem, yet an insurmountable one: they're not written by Fleming.

I pick up "Zero Minus Ten" and read a few chapters. It's enjoyable enough (and Benson deserves credit for his research and use of locations), but at very best it's no more than Fleming Lite, and there's nothing to really engage me intellectually or emotionally. I find myself wondering why I'm not simply reading Fleming. (Also - as has been pointed out hundreds of times over the years - James Bond was Fleming, or at least his creator's fantasy version of himself.)

I pick up "From Russia With Love" and am spellbound from the first sentence.

So Gardner and Benson are all very well as far as they go, but.... they don't go far enough.

The exception is Amis. "Colonel Sun" is the only continuation novel that I feel deserves to be taken as seriously as a Fleming book. Not only does it meet the quality standard (Amis does not merely hold a candle to Fleming in the vocabulary department - he's arguably an even better writer), it also follows on from "The Man With the Golden Gun" and gives us a Bond who's believably the same chap whom Fleming wrote about. "Colonel Sun" ends an era, and IMO ought to have been the final Bond novel. For all the gratuitous references to everyone from Gala Brand to Dr. No in the works of both Gardner and Benson, it is very difficult to accept those authors, writing from the early 1980s onwards, as continuing something Fleming started.

[GreggAllinson]

When I was growing up, my dad took me to the Moore Bond films as they were being released. I thought they were quite dull because Bond was too clever by half, always got the girl, and was just too damn perfect. It wasn't until License to Kill that I enjoyed the Bond character, because for the first time, I saw him as a human being.

I fell asleep during Goldeneye. Haven't bothered with a Brosnan film since.

However, a few weeks ago at the library I work at, I noticed we had a copy of Casino Royale. I was aware of its reputation of something of an oddity in the Bond film canon, and had heard some interesting things about Fleming's Bond novels, so I gave it a read.

I'm now officially a Bond fanatic! Bond *isn't* an invincible sex god. He's handsome and hardworking, sure, but he also wonders why God has the Bible while Satan's side of the story goes untold, nearly blows the big mission (saved only by Felix Leiter's timely loan and the unwilling aid of SMERSH), shrugs off his Double 0 status as nothing to be proud of, and concludes a report on the suicide of the woman he loves with "The bitch is dead." He's a human being with a dark side, not an action figure. Marvellous stuff. I would kill to see Quentin Tarantino put the novel on film with a harder-edged actor in the role (perhaps even the sometimes-mentioned Russell Crowe).

The library doesn't have a copy of Live and Let Die, so I'm going to have to do an inter-library loan, but I'm eagerly looking forward to reading it.

[Brix Bond]

I agree, our generation hates reading. It comes from being forced to read things that we do not want to read. If weren't for Bond, I would have never developed an appreciation for reading.

I think poetry is a crock of .... . I think that poems really do not have any hidden meaning. I think all forms of literature are insanely over analyzed. Unless the author was hyped up on LSD, the funny words ands speech patterns are a result of their high, not attempts at meaning.

I think that English teachers are perhaps the least necessary teachers out there. After 8th grade they become useless, we have the necessary grammar and vocabulary. The rest is just icing on the proverbial cake, it's nice to go further, but is just not needed. Upper level English classes that focus on old poetry, literature, should simply be optional, and not forced upon us.

And the winner of this week's sweeping generalisation...

Poetry does have meaning, but it has individual meaning which makes it difficult when trying to form a critique on what a poet is actually trying to say. Once a poem is released onto the world it loses the meaning that the poet put behind it. That is not to say that the poem has no meaning, rather that it's now open to individual interpretation.

And English teachers are the least necessary teachers out there? Well, as an American you may not appreciate this, but I quote one Texan governer who said on the subject of introduction of foreign langauges into Texan schools:

"Well, if English were good enuff fur Jesus, it's good enuff fur our kids."

Beleive me, you need all the education you can get.

As for Fleming, well, I read Moonraker for a book report in my 2nd year of high school and the teacher, on handing back the top scorers held my report, squinted her nose and said to the entire class "Moonraker...well it's not what I would have chosen but you did a good job".

Unfortunatly the movies have clouded the literary OO7 somewhat and my views on this are well known due to my vocal stance on the matter. Fleming has always been put down by English teachers because they have this idea that they are mindless action books with little substance hiding behind them, but this is really through ignorance and the whole Bond movie culture. Many teachers have not read Fleming but are quick to dismiss him and I find that offensive to have one of the greatest thiller writers of modern times and match to the James Bond fuse so easily shoved to the back of the bookshelf to try and peer out over Jane Austen, regarded (although not by me) to be one of the finest writers in her genre.

Fleming will always continue to fade in the public eye as the movies continue to emblazon themselves upon said ocular recepticle, as is the case with Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, Harry Potter. I find it sad to have a book devalued by a movie. I actually prefer the books to the movies.

[Four Aces]

Fleming is indeed the master!

4A

[White Tuxedo]

Fleming not appreciated enough? Hmmm.... well, he's at the very least a lot more appreciated than the other Bond novelists. Actually, in a way it's a good thing that most of the continuation novels are out of print - since it forces those developing an interest in the literary Bond to read the Flemings first before seeking out the Gardners and Bensons.

And Fleming's much more important than Gardner and Benson. Right?

Right?

Yep. It's also odd to see how many fans like those other fellas more than Fleming.

I don't think he's influenced more people than Shakespeare though.

[Four Aces]

I think Shakespeare is "much ado about nothing"!

4A

[Xenobia]

It is a rare teacher that can appreciate the impact of someone like Fleming, or his American contempories like Mickey Spillane.

They all wrote in a period of Post Modern fiction where you finding out how much you could get away with in terms of sex and violence in print. They opened doors for fiction writers that no one else had the nerve to do.

There always has been, and I fear always will be, this idea amongst those living in the Ivory Tower (aka Academia) that what is popular is bad. That is simply not true. If they were bad writers, they wouldn't be popular.

By the way, I too think Shakespeare is way over rated, and I feel his "popularity" comes from having him shoved down the throats of English speaking readers for centuries.

-- Xenobia

[marktmurphy]

Yes Xen, truely you and only you can see the truth. A 'rare teacher' indeed.

[Xenobia]

Oh, I am pretty rare on a lot of fronts Mark. Take my word for it.

-- X

[Four Aces]

...It is a rare teacher that can appreciate the impact of someone like Fleming...

Hey! Wait just a minute. I did a search on you, and you committed sacrilege by referring to him as "Phlegming" in one of your past posts.

Caught ya! Neener-neener.

Seriously, why the change?

4A

[Xenobia]

Who are you refereing to Aces. I never refered to Fleming by anything but his proper name.

-- Xenobia

[Four Aces]

Hmmm. I must be mistaken. Can't find the thread anymore.

4A

[marktmurphy]

Incidentally, Xen. Are you aware that Shakespeare still is immensely popular and that in his time was a lot more popular than Fleming ever was? It seems strange to think that you imagine Academia to hate all that is popular and yet celebrate the most popular artist of all time simultaneously, don't you think? And thusly, if you think all popular writers are good, how can Shakespeare be bad? You seem to contradict yourself continuously.

[Xenobia]

There is a difference between someone being popular because people choose to read them (like Fleming), and someone being "popular" because students are forced to read them.

Shakespeare, for the most part, falls into the latter category. While Shakespeare was very popular in his day, I wonder how he would be doing now, had teachers all around the world continued to insist that students read him.

-- Xenobia

[Johnboy007]

And the winner of this week's sweeping generalisation...

Poetry does have meaning, but it has individual meaning which makes it difficult when trying to form a critique on what a poet is actually trying to say. Once a poem is released onto the world it loses the meaning that the poet put behind it. That is not to say that the poem has no meaning, rather that it's now open to individual interpretation.

And English teachers are the least necessary teachers out there? Well, as an American you may not appreciate this, but I quote one Texan governer who said on the subject of introduction of foreign langauges into Texan schools:

"Well, if English were good enuff fur Jesus, it's good enuff fur our kids."

Beleive me, you need all the education you can get.

Fleming will always continue to fade in the public eye as the movies continue to emblazon themselves upon said ocular recepticle, as is the case with Lord of the Rings and, to a lesser extent, Harry Potter. I find it sad to have a book devalued by a movie. I actually prefer the books to the movies.

Perhaps it's just my own experiences.

The English teachers I have had, my sisters have had, and my parents had, were always the world's largest post-menopausal snobs on the planet. Literature is strictly what they say it is, you are forced to believe what they tell you, or you are dead wrong. If it wasn't for the crap thrown in my face by them, I may enjoy these "great" works more.

Not to mention teacher's sexism. Boys are apparently the worlds biggest idiots, and nothing we write is worth anything.

Science teachers are even worse, but I have an extremely biased opinion at the moment.

My 6th grade math teacher screwed me out of a good college now.

[White Tuxedo]

Well, I wouldn't say Shakespeare is overrated (maybe by some) but he is overemphasised. I'm an acting student (who's into film rather than theatre, so that's my first sin ) but I've always said that Shakespeare kinda bores me in that 50,000 people have already performed it. But it should be heard rather than read, so I never understood all these stuckup English professors saying "You must read Shakespeare."

But I enjoy more pulpy, lurid writing, and Fleming appeals to me. Not to call him "pulpy."

[Jim]

While Shakespeare was very popular in his day, I wonder how he would be doing now, had teachers all around the world continued to insist that students read him.

-- Xenobia

Do you mean not continued to insist...?

I don't think comparing Shakespeare and Fleming gets us anywhere. A more realistic comparator would be Thomas Hardy (unfathomably popular) or Daniel Defoe (ditto), both of whom are inflicted upon schoolchildren undeserving of such a fate, despite being plainly written. There was some kerfuffle a few years back about The Day of the Jackal being on a syllabus, but it had a sensible purpose - nobody pretended it was great literature but it worked to get children reading. If one used Fleming for that purpose, then fine; but no further than that. There really isn't much there and we're deluding ourselves because of our fondness for his creation, prejudiced too far towards him, if we think there is.

[Jim]

By the way, I too think Shakespeare is way over rated

-- Xenobia

Not that I really want to force you to do this, but I'd like you to justify that comment, rather than just make it.

[freemo]

-

[Xenobia]

I suppose the only way to justify my comment, which is really an opinion, is to simply ask, why aren't we reading as much Chrisopher Marlowe, who was an equal success in the same time period as Shakespeare?

Somewhere, someone made the decision to put Shakespeare over Marlowe, and the rest is literary history.

Shakespeare gets a lot of credit for proliferating the modern English language, but I suspect had he not done it, someone else would have, simply because such things happen in a natural order anyway.

In other words, Shakespeare's fame is a trick of history. Had it not been him, it would have been Marlowe, or someone else. It should be all of them together.

But I give you points Jim, for the reference to Defoe. He is ghastly, isn't he?

-- Xenobia